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Years ago, I was in a meeting with Jack Gifford, the founding CEO of Maxim Integrated Products. Maxim’s revenue was around $1 billion per year at the time. Also in the meeting was “Peter”, one of the best engineering managers in the company.
Peter was complaining to Gifford how hard it was to recruit great engineers for the products he was responsible for. Peter was trying to spin a classic “woes me” tale to Gifford. However, the problem was Gifford was having none of it.
Gifford, as he was known to do, cut right through the garbage Peter was spewing and said, “I’m tired of hearing this shit. Look. You have to sell your ass off (to recruit great talent)!”
And there it was. It was so simple, yet so true. You’ll find it to be same for you.
You will not be able to recruit great engineers unless you are credible.
It doesn’t matter what your background is. It doesn’t matter what your experience is. Great engineers have lots of options where they want to work. So, like Gifford said, you’re going to have to sell your ass off.
That means you’ll have to share your grand vision for your company with the engineers you’re recruiting. And, you’ll get instant feedback whether your vision and story…
